Given A Heartbeat
by FutureMagicLab
Summary: Homura has prepared for everything except moving on. No one knows what she knows, but she may be less alone than she thinks. (Post-Anime)
1. I

Homura Akemi has lived the same month so many times that counting has lost all meaning. She's known it by heart, right down to the weather each day will bring. Usually, that's independent of anything she does, but there have been exceptions. There have been exceptions to everything - to everything except the one inescapable fact that she's given her soul, everything she is, to change.

Madoka Kaname always contracts. Madoka Kaname always dies. And the world is always doomed and very, very bleak afterward, but it's never mattered before.

Then, it changes. Finally, Madoka is... something other than dead. She is still gone, but Homura's wish has... been rendered unnecessary. The following day comes.

It's a sunny afternoon and there's a red ribbon in her hair.

There is another night, another wraith, and this time no one dies.

It rains for the first time - after - and the air stays soft and gentle. It smells of flowers and sleep instead of fuel and smoke and whiffs of sulfur.

Everything about the world Homura has known is different. It is emptier, but that isn't the only change. She notices it first when she's alone, forcing herself to go over each detail she remembers with meticulous scrutiny - even those she's tried to forget. They have a new value, and it's all rooted right around her. Only she knows, only she remembers, and she has to keep it that way.

At first, she anticipates a jealousy to follow and fall into the long shadow of the single-minded determination that has eaten away at everything else that was left of her for so long. Years. It doesn't. Instead, simple loneliness starts to fill up the space. It's still a hollow, a sometimes aching, sometimes numb vacancy, but it's... warmer than jealousy. Quieter than bitterness.

She feels it, resting inside of her, spreading outward from her chest in a forgotten cavity warm and full of blood. It's not there - not really - and it's not really true in the most practical and technical of senses. Nevertheless, she feels it. Through all that has happened, Homura Akemi feels the faintest, most tenuous trace of a connection to her soul.


	2. II

The rain is warm but lapping and insistent, catching metallic reflections from street signs and guard rails when she makes her way to Mami Tomoe's apartment. Her soul gem is clutched and bulbous in her hand, etching temporary reddened welts into the still-soft parts of her palm. As deliberate as her existence, Homura pounds the side of her fist against the door. Her soul gem is present, felt, jostling with her fist until she gets an answer. Rainwater seeps up through her stockings.

The chain rattles and she catches a glimpse of Mami Tomoe's eyes, wide and bright with constantly startling naivete. Homura huffs out an impatient breath while the door falls shut and reopens, this time without any restraint.

"Hello, Homura," she says. The lack of formality is as stiff as if she'd gone out of her way to do quite the opposite. Homura senses the tension, but she can't be bothered to care. She doesn't have _time _\- she...

"Man, you mean that's not my pizza?" Kyoko Sakura's loud, unmistakable voice complains.

A polite huff of a chuckle follows from Mami who grips the edge of the door and rubs it up and down.

"We didn't order any pizza," she corrects, patronizing in a way that Homura is surprised Kyoko remains lying down for. Literally, as it happens. She spots her lying on the floor by Mami's low, triangular table.

"Yeah? And why not?" Kyoko sniffs.

"Do come in, Miss Akemi," Mami says after tugging her attention away from Kyoko who is currently holding an empty teacup far above her face without obvious motivation.

"I came to talk," Homura says, establishing clear and firm boundaries even though she sets foot inside the door.

"So talk. That'd be a change," Kyoko remarks, little _clank _of porcelain setting down against tempered glass.

"You're drenched," Mami insists. It's an exaggeration. "You can at least have some tea," she continues airily, trying to coax her closer to the little table. It is spread with half-emptied plates of cakes and cookies and a stray bag of crumbly potato chips that Homura knows must belong to Kyoko.

"You look like hell," Kyoko says, the only indication that she has spared her a glance. It sounds like a wry, barbed compliment more than direct insult, but this is more background information that Homura doesn't _need_. Another variable.

"I'm fine, thank you," Homura says, eyes falling shut for a little longer than the duration of a blink. This is trying her patience. Every second that ticks by is maddening, and she cannot _wait_ any longer to move on. She wants to get to the next step, the next _part _of the plan, the next _day_, the next, the next, the next...

The _next _that she anticipates will never come. She knows that. The _next_ that involves waking up to the familiar smell of clean, sterile air - finding glasses, a new student guide, and a calendar marked by a hand she hardly remembers - the _next _that means seeing Madoka Kaname's face for the _first time_, the _next time_, the _last time_. That _next _is all used up, and when it dawns on her completely, yet again, in this moment, it takes her breath. Her heart gives a sick little flutter in her chest and it feels tight, and for the moment she forgets to simply _fix it_ again at the cost of a slightly darker shade of purple in her hand. Her knees weaken, and it is the only practical course of action to follow their lead. She lowers herself down right onto them, fingers splaying out and bracing her right along the unoccupied side of the table. In through her nose comes a deep breath, but it's not enough. When Mami Tomoe pours an uninvited cup of tea for her, she takes it and downs it in one swallow, the warmth _too hot _for her throat.

Her own porcelain cup - it's hers now, she's accepted it - clicks down against its matching saucer. And just like that, she's consumed her first cup of tea in more than six years. It's unremarkable and strange, feeling the little responsible gurgle from within her belly. She glances down at it, frustrated more than concerned.

"Y' sound hungry," Kyoko remarks. There's a big flop of red hair, and she's up on her elbow, peeking across the table at Homura.

"I've come here to discuss wraiths with both of you." Homura is deliberate in her task and does not meet Kyoko's eyes. Instead, she looks to Mami because she knows this Kyoko still listens to Mami. She chooses the path of least resistance. The world isn't worth protecting, but she has decided to. She does not think she will be able to protect Mitakihara on her own over the next two weeks or so. Quite simply, they need to plan. "There is an outbreak of a strong strain of influenza, lots of new hospital admissions, and that's just today."

"So get your flu shot," Kyoko mumbles, sniffing and itching at her nose in what Homura determines is a sympathetic gesture.

"Kyoko," Mami shushes softly, a gentle scolding meant for her ears alone. She nods at Homura. "I understand," she says, and then she gets up to retrieve something. When she returns, she sets a sleek white piece of equipment with a plastic speaker grill running across its front on the table. It's a little clunky but modern enough, and it surprises Homura to see Mami this prepared. Mami depresses a button and when she lets go a green indicator light winks to life and, after a momentary hiss, a flood of crisscrossing signals spits into the air around them. Mami tunes something with her fingers, and one clear conversation comes to life, rattling out the details of a minor traffic accident. Mami's eyes are only a little dimmed. "We do listen for potential threats, you know."

"A lot of people might die," Homura warns, appealing to sympathy and compassion that sound like a pretty poem in a language she doesn't know.

"We'll be ready, Miss Akemi," Mami insists with a little impatient bob of her head, perfectly exaggerated curls bouncing along in response.


	3. III

Illness is a slow burn. Despair creeps in - fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness, grief, and loss - mingled with and tacking onto the usual darkness that lurks just beyond the sight of ordinary humans. Little flares of hope come along, too, when someone or other gets better, keeping one more wraith at bay. But it's not enough. This virus is taking children away, and everyone sees them go. They aren't nameless, countless girls turned to forgotten police reports. They are children, and they are dying.

Homura prefers working alone. She has grown accustomed to only relying on herself. For a few days, she keeps fighting alone, leaving Mami and Kyoko to their own devices. Only, that isn't the reality this world remembers. They notice her absence and expect explanation when she stops by out of necessity, more and more frequently.

The month that follows wears on, and there's something inevitable about them ending up at the hospital together. The storm worsens before it ends, bitter jealousy adding itself to the tumult of feelings for the wraiths to draw their strength from. Some get better and some don't. Some people's lives will never be free from grief again. There hasn't been a strain of the virus so vicious in recent Japanese history.

On the way back to Mami's apartment, Homura considers the fact that these things have a way of balancing themselves out. She walks a few paces behind, and the three girls make a staggered line until they reach the steps. They fall in, one after another, and make their way into the darkened room that smells faintly of cake.

"Excellent work, girls," Kyubey says once over the threshold. "I've never seen so many wraiths in a single night. And to think, you nearly dispatched all of them!"

Homura doubts that the little creature has any idea that the reason it's never seen so many is because until five weeks ago, they didn't exist. She's explained and it's listened, but its retention (or truthfulness) is hardly guaranteed. It lies, but only in degrees - carefully limited to things like omission and hyperbole. She feels it circle, slinking against her stockinged calf, tail curling along behind. She watches its white form trot further into the cozy, still dark.

"I'm going to bed," Kyoko announces. By 'go' she seems to mean walk a few more begrudging steps. By 'bed' she means taking a crumpled blanket from the sofa into a bunch in her arms and collapsing herself down flat on her stomach. She lies parallel with the sofa but a little beyond it on the floor, facing further into Mami's apartment as she clutches the bunched blanket like a pillow. After a moment, she burrows her face into the crook of an arm.

Kyubey begins to flit around the room like a cocktail waiter, expectant and excitable. Homura takes the first turn at fulfilling its expectations, dropping a small number of the wraith's impurities into the waiting port on its back.

Mami crouches to pet softly behind each of Kyubey's ears before dropping hers inside. Homura watches as the steady red gaze stares right through Mami's golden eyes and her eyelashes when she flutters them closed.

"Oh, it was so terrible," Mami says in a soft, wrenching tone. Kyubey makes its way over toward Kyoko. She hardly glances up when it approaches, handful and then another and a third smaller one going right down into its back. One after the other they pour inside with a soft, pattering sound that terminates as soon as the things vanish into the little void. All the while, Kyoko is tucked as tightly as she can be with her nose in the crook of her elbow.

"But you saved them!" Kyubey insists, turning back to look at Mami. There is a tight, adamant flap of its tail.

"Hey," Kyoko complains when it apparently makes some kind of contact with her.

"I'll see you tomorrow!" Kyubey says. It seems in a hurry to leave, and in a moment it is gone.

"Yeah, good riddance." Red hair shakes out a little as Kyoko reaches back to set some of it free.

"Oh," Mami says with sudden alarm, back on her feet and dusting off her skirt. "Let me get you another blanket. I'll be _right back_."

She heads toward the back of the apartment, toward where a bedroom must be.

Kyoko waits until she's halfway there to give a response.

"'Night, Mami," she calls, still muffled but loud enough to be heard.

"But-"

"_'Night_, Mami," Kyoko insists, mouth only a little less filled with cotton.

"Oh. Well, goodnight, then - Miss Akemi," Mami replies. Her hands come together and fidget in front of her as her focus shifts. "Feel free to stay as long as you'd like. Make yourself at home."

A very small bow follows, and then Mami is gone to her room.


	4. IV

Some time later, Homura is still in Mami Tomoe's apartment. Her back is resting against the couch while she sits at the half-cleared table. She examines her fingernails patiently in nothing but scattered street- and moonlight. She has nowhere in particular to go, no reason to do so. This battle is won, and she's not sure what to make of the war. The single constant, cruel fact that will never leave her plagues her thoughts while she thumbs over the purple diamond that adorns one of her nails.

A _flop _abruptly interrupts the silence. Homura's heart speeds in her chest and she breathes to calm it down.

"So, you never said."

Homura doesn't know what this interjection refers to. She considers it quietly, searching for any trace of connection to the specter she must be in Kyoko Sakura's memory.

"... What happened to yours. Your parents, I mean," Kyoko clarifies when nothing but breath follows.

"It is unimportant," Homura says, automatic and refusing to feel a thing.

"Yeah, prob'ly," Kyoko says, finger suddenly picking at a tooth. Abrupt as ever, she's up from lying on her back. She blinks a few times, taking in her surroundings and focusing on Homura where she sits past her feet.

"Is there a reason you ask?" Homura inquires. She has no reason to do so, but there's no reason for anything. Only one reason. It doesn't really matter which way she turns it around in her mind.

Kyoko shrugs.

"I dunno. Just seems like you might wanna tell us somethin'. You're the only one I don't know anything about," she says. Her eyes lose their focus a little and she looks down at her fingers.

Homura doesn't have to watch for very long to know what she's doing. Mouthing numbers or not, tapping thumb to fingertip or not, Homura knows what she's seeing. Kyoko is taking tally. _One, two, __**three**__, and..._

Just knowing the truth isn't always of much use.

The hand drops when Kyoko is finished. She has something of a snarl on her face as she begins to skew the things left on the table, searching for something to eat.

"Your _parents _know where you are?" she asks gruffly around a bite of hours-old cupcake.

"No. They do not," Homura says evenly.

"Right, right. 'Course they don't," Kyoko says. She gets up from the floor as changeably as she'd chewed on the dried, cold cupcake. She has completely lost interest in her line of questioning but hasn't left it without end. "Gonna go brush my teeth. Wouldn't wanna lose 'em!" She glances back over her shoulder at Homura and flashes a toothy, sharp grin. She reaches up, taps the point of one of her sharp incisors with the pad of her thumb. Then she looks away, headed toward the washroom.

Homura's fingers twitch atop her knee. Nylon is slick beneath her fingertips.

"What did you see... Kyoko?" She has no reason to ask but every reason to use her name. It is strategic, like every other thing Homura knows, does. It is informal, personal, and direct - the three things she knows Kyoko Sakura always is. There is no reason to ask, but none not to, either.

Kyoko's back tenses and she's still for a few seconds. She turns back to Homura where she stands. She shrugs, clearly trying to wriggle away bodily tension.

"Somethin' I shouldn't've. Wasn't any of my business, really." She holds eye contact until she pauses. Then, she's looking at the floor. Bared toes make an effort to grip at the carpet. When had she taken off her boots? "There was this... mom, I guess. One of the rooms. Shouldn't have even been in there, but I thought... I saw somethin'. Y'know, a wraith or somethin', but instead there was this mom and she was... holding her kid. But her kid was already dead, and she was... rockin' him back and forth, crying, but there wasn't a wraith in the place, y'know? They were all out... fightin'. Fighting us while... this lady... just... kept holdin' her kid while the world was shaking. And I just..."

She lifts her gaze but levels it at the window, following parallel to the blinds. Then it's off to the bathroom with her without another word. It isn't very far, and she leaves the door half-open. On the vanity, she fingers her way through a cup with more than one toothbrush. She takes one that must be hers. Homura just barely notices reflection coming back to her in the pale blue dark.

She looks down at the hem of her skirt and picks at a thread that's become bare. Kyoko hasn't realized it yet, but the power to fix even these things is right at their fingertips, worn in rings, held in palms. It's what they are now. Only, Homura still hears the gentle, rhythmic scrubbing. It goes on for two or three minutes. By the end of it, Homura knows she's staying.


	5. V

Eating and drinking are completely unnecessary for what they are now. That doesn't stop Kyoko and Mami from doing it almost every day. Homura starts, keeping it to a polite minimum.

She drinks her tea as soon as it is poured, feeling the flooding, briefly swelling burn. Her tongue feels dry and a little inoperable. Simply put, it hurts.

Homura knows the dangers of blocking out the pain completely. It is better to feel this than to lose her concentration in a fight. She rubs the sandpaper feel of the delicate skin against the back of her teeth. It takes time for the flesh to feel anything but strangely wrong after the minor scalding, and for the duration she is silent, face held stoically calm. She had forgotten what it felt like. So many times she's held coffee or tea in her hands, warmth transferring through usually cardboard and foam cups. She's moved them hand to hand, poured them out, left them sitting on tables, and thrown them away. But it's been years and years of a month since she's tasted them. And she hasn't started to yet.

She hasn't given herself the chance, even though her stomach audibly gurgles at the sudden attention. It's a hollow, soft sound.

"I'm glad the worst of it is over," Mami says when she has apparently decided it's time for them to talk about work. She does this most days. To her, Homura is a new recruit - always - but this is one of the things for which Homura can muster little attention. She meets Mami's gaze only to release it to flit to Kyoko as she knows it will. This Kyoko has _come back_ to her, a prodigal protege. Homura hasn't yet learned all the reasons for this because it's background information that - for her - never really happened. She can't think of a reason that it's relevant, but it is notably strange. So many times before, what happened to Kyoko's family prevented her from coming anywhere near until after Mami was dead. This makes her suppose that both the attention Kyoko spares her during the reminiscence of their last month's struggle against the wraiths and Kyoko's characteristic absence are motivated by the same sense of connection. Kyoko must think of Mami as a part of what she's already lost each and every time - family.

It's a novel concept.

Suddenly moved with a sigh and a tense shrugging of shoulders, Kyoko moves her legs so she's sitting on her knees instead of folding them to her chest. She reaches back, manually adjusting ankles. When her hand comes back up, she points to the untouched plate of baked sweets sitting at Homura's left hand.

"You gonna eat that?" she asks, an abrupt segue of subject.

"No," Homura says. She expects something to happen but finds that she has to meet Kyoko's waiting eyes to interrupt the pause. "You may have them, if you want," she adds. She makes some effort to sound casual rather than giving any hint at being confused.

"Thanks," Kyoko mumbles only around a nibbled off bite. At first, Homura is grateful when it seems that no more cookie-related smalltalk is to follow. Then, it occurs to her that she isn't sure what else there is to say. She's nearly prepared when she notices the searching, keen sweep of Kyoko's eyes along her seemingly designated side of the table. A small inching of the small, delicate plate back toward Homura's hand. "Sure you don't want some?"

"I'm sure. Thank you, Kyoko Sakura," Homura says. There's no reason to thank her, but Homura knows she will remain where she is now for hours and something has to fill the time, the silence.

A slow nod answers her.

"This one's weird. Where'd you pick her up?" Kyoko asks Mami - a conveniently timed allusion to their history. A naive suggestion that Mami's selection has anything to do with their being chosen, with their being alive, with their being here. Homura could be angry, but none of them know anything about Madoka. They are not to blame, and it isn't their burden to bear.

"Be nice, Kyoko," Mami scolds with a little laughter. "Miss Homura isn't _weird_. She's very polite. You might... try it sometime."

Kyoko's teeth show when she grins.

"Keep dreamin'. 'Sides you wouldn't recognize me if I did."

"Unfortunately that is probably the case."

"Fortunately for you. One of us has gotta keep our head out of the clouds," Kyoko says. Without explanation or apparent reason, her gaze drifts up, squinting past gauzy layers of curtain to catch a glimpse of blue sky above them. It's darkening, forked with encroaching, duller gray streaks, licked by hints of only slightly foreboding pink at the edge of their lens of view. A jagged piece of mauled cookie is set back down on the little plate it'd come from. Kyoko starts to get up. "I'm goin' huntin'. Blowing off some steam before nightfall. See if I can stake out some trouble."

"On your own?" Mami asks.

"Yeah. You don't want to go when it's not serious. I'll give ya a report on it," Kyoko says with a shrug, tugging at the turquoise hoodie with nervous, side-to-side energy.

Homura's gaze drops back to the glinting edge of the table. Her thumb comes up and brushes along.

"I would like to brush my teeth," she says. Her tongue is only just better from dryly numb.

The widening of the redhead standing above her's eyes seems a little disproportionate to the request and it catches Homura's attention. She forces it away, over to Mami's instead. This is her apartment.

"Of course!" Mami says, moving to get to her feet. Homura mirrors her - the polite thing to do under the circumstances. Everything feels deliberate, but it's a _normal_ enough thing to do.

"Nah, wait a second," Kyoko says, waving with easily flexing fingers. "I'll show 'er."

"-If I am still welcome," Homura adds. She steps around the corner of the table.

"Of course. You are more than welcome to stay as long as you like. Magical Girls need to stick together," Mami says.

Homura turns to follow Kyoko to the washroom before she can be seen rolling her eyes.

"Y' don't suffer from halitosis or anything, is what I'm saying," Kyoko says. Homura doesn't know if she had been saying anything before that and wonders if she somehow lost a few seconds. "But I guess, now that I think about it, you always slip out before daylight when you stay. When I stay. So I guess it makes sense."

Kyoko has reached the vanity by this point. It is artfully cluttered with floral-printed boxes of cosmetics and a tangle of wires from a hairdryer and an iron for curling and an iron for flattening and the drying splinter of a sweet-smelling bar of soap. Kyoko pushes some of it out of her way. A flowery piece of cardboard hits the floor with barely a sound. The mirror swings away, abrupt and shifting the light, making Homura think more of labyrinths than hygiene. She steps a little closer, attentively watching Kyoko's movements. She plucks an individually packaged, unopened toothbrush from the shelf. Its handle is a little transparent and a very garish, glinting pink.

Homura doesn't immediately reach out to take the cardboard and plastic. The apprehension that holds her isn't very outwardly apparent, but it keeps her very still.

Kyoko tiptoes as if it would help her get a better look at the toothbrush angled away from her face. She doesn't adjust its tilt as she looks down.

"What's the matter? Don't like the color?" she asks, a sympathetic wrinkle in her nose. "I thought you'd like it," she says, only a little backhanded, without looking up. "It kinda looks like your soul gem when it's clean. Kinda..." She looks up, appraising Homura's clothes and frame. In her school uniform, Homura is shades of gray and black, the quiet colors of time long past. She doesn't blame Kyoko for easily forgetting the more obviously purple hues of her _costume_ when she isn't in it. It is all a matter of perception. No, the horrifying thing is that Kyoko doesn't understand and is incapable of understanding what something so small as a forgotten toothbrush, bright pink and unopened, really means.

Homura takes the package and jabs her thumbnail deep into the vulnerable cardboard covering. She rips at it brutally, making quick work of it with a soft and underwhelming cacophony of tears, rips, and clicking, bending, giving plastic.

"Really into brushin' your teeth, huh?" Kyoko asks. Her eyes are wide and her fingers casually brush against the cup that holds two other toothbrushes - one yellow, one red. The red one looks a little worse for wear like it's been used to scrub away more than germs and crumbs in a mouth.

Homura blinks her focus clear and reaches past the other girl's wrist to take the tube of toothpaste, each movement tense and careful and thoughtful.

"Pink is just a fractal of red. It's... nothing, really. Just a trick of the light," she comments. "We give it a name. Our eyes... deceive us." Her own eyes flicked over Kyoko's hair, considering.

"Huh," Kyoko says, commandeering eye contact from her as if with a physical force. She nods toward the misappropriated teacup. "Just put it in there when you're done. I can tell the difference."

"You are leaving?" Homura asks softly. Kyoko's footsteps answer before her mouth does.

"Yeah. I'll see you tonight, though. I just gotta..."

"I know," Homura says. She runs a short burst of water over the toothpaste and watches as it separates just a little along the new bristles.

Kyoko doesn't understand what a _pink_ toothbrush in this naive, carefully constructed, color-coded world of Mami Tomoe's means. How could she? Mami Tomoe herself doesn't know, doesn't _remember_ the pink-haired girl that had come along before Homura ever had. She doesn't remember her second protege. She doesn't remember the only reason she isn't dead.

Homura focuses on the fresh, scraping friction against the damaged epithelial cells on her tongue, considering how each one of them will heal and replace as if she's not a day older than she was on March 16th, if she simply _wishes_ it so. Nonetheless, her naive body wants to wince around the now unfamiliar sensation. She doesn't let it. When her eyes burn, she focuses on the scraping sound resonating in her head and only just notices the red glint of focus on her through the mirror. Then, Kyoko turns away and it's gone.


	6. VI

Homura's body is floating, as separate from her as it ever is. She breathes and her chest rises and falls. She doesn't need to breathe and she stops.

She starts again with a short gasp.

Fingertips play at the front of her clothing, with a button of her shirt. She picks at a tiny loose thread and deliberately coaxes it further out of the seam.

She is on her back in Mami Tomoe's apartment, lying on the floor and gazing up at the ceiling when she cracks open heavy eyelids.

Trying to sleep is as difficult as trying to eat. She doesn't know why she's doing it and nearly gives up in frustration. There had been times during the loop when she'd slept. Unlike eating, it did serve the purpose of allowing a different kind of thought, a different experience of the flow of time. If she had been awake the entire time, every time, she would have long since gone mad beyond recovery. But this is different.

She knows that when she falls asleep, she will awaken on Mami's carpet to no new sense of urgency. It will be an early, weekend morning, and she will have no school to excuse herself to. She has no need of hunting, no need of searching, and no need of doing anything. Sleeping feels a lot like admitting defeat.

It almost helps to imagine that she is drifting back into that plane and space of existence where she and Madoka had - for a few moments, for forever - existed side by side, together, infinite and finite and whole. Only, when she begins to feel her eyes move a little more freely behind closed lids, when the imagined light reveals itself for what it is, she is reminded that being there wasn't a dream - she's never been more awake...

There is a tapping and a scraping against glass that makes her start awake. She isn't afraid. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Pushed up onto her elbows, she sees a leg and brown boot plant themselves on the floor. The rest of Kyoko slides gracefully in through the window, turning on the balls of her feet like a dancer to close it back behind her.

"Always a flare for the dramatic," Homura comments, tone neutral as ever. She sees Kyoko react a little, barely a twitch, but she knows them all so well.

"Yeah, well. I gotta keep in practice. Never know when I'm gonna need it," Kyoko retorts, conversationally low. She locks the window behind her, the mechanism apparently still operable.

"You returned."

"You sound surprised."

"I just didn't know you made such a habit of Mami Tomoe's apartment."

"Why not? It's clean and dry. I got sick of my old place. Y'know... It got - hotel bed got a little bit creepy. I don't know why, but why not? She was dyin' for me to come back after-"

"I would imagine so," Homura says into the abrupt silence.

Kyoko plops down near her chosen spot along the carpeted floor. Shoulder blades touch the seat cushion of the sofa as she braces herself against it. She begins tugging off her boots.

Homura reclines again, knowing of no reason not to. Her fingers and thumb once again start to pick and twist at the button along her abdomen.

"You're sleepin' in _that_?" Kyoko asks, all judgment and opinion abundantly clear in her tone.

Homura answers with a casual sweep of her eyes over Kyoko's shorts and hoodie she wears most of the time when not decked out in magical, bloody red.

"Hey, 'least this is comfortable," Kyoko says to the silent remark. "Hang on a second. I'll go get ya some of Mami's stuff. She's rich. Won't miss it."

She gets to her feet and heads toward Mami's bedroom without any pause to allow hesitance to develop. Part of Homura is fundamentally opposed to accepting help, accepting charity, particularly from Mami Tomoe. It doesn't seem fair, given the balance of things that they know. But when Kyoko gets up to find _pajamas _for her - such a strange, foreign idea at this point, though she remembers an endless parade of hospital gowns a long lifetime ago - she sees no reason to stop her.

Time keeps moving forward. She has time to change her clothes.


	7. VII

Summer days come, and school ceases to be a distraction. Homura has learned some new things about the history of the artifice of a world Madoka has created from near-perfect memory of everything but herself. There is nothing about math an educational institution can teach her that experience has not. And yet, she misses the occupation of space, time, sound. No matter how it aches when someone else is the nurse's aid, when she looks at a desk occupied by someone else entirely.

At least in the following school season, she won't move through the same rooms, same spaces, same classes, same motions. There will be no more exact repeats.

Sometimes, Kyoko is gone for a day, three, even a week. But each time she comes back, and by the time summer has blanketed the air with hard-to-breathe heat, they have a routine.

Mami has offered to let Homura take space in her spare bedroom. For some reason, no one ever touches it. It's as though it's meant for someone else, and Homura doesn't know who yet. It is another empty corner of space – something reserved and forgotten and dusty from moments that never did / do / will - come / came. Time is a funny thing, especially when it's broken. She is to blame for that, more than anyone.

She does accept the offer of a blanket. It's long and wide and creamy white and soft. It seems excessive somehow, so Homura folds it in half and drapes it over herself when she sleeps on the couch. She does not actually live there, but she doesn't always leave. Even when Kyoko doesn't come, she finds herself there, mostly in silence. She still doesn't have a fully functional appetite, but she eats most days. And then, sooner or later, Kyoko deigns to knock on the door or pops in through the window.

When summer has reached its peak, one part of the locking mechanism is broken. There had been some yelling and tense whispers that followed the incident as Mami seethed at nothing. It tugs at Homura's lips when she looks at it or when it screeches and complains when Kyoko sidles in and attempts to lock it back, more out of habit than respect. They all know how to fix it without the least bit of extra help from tools or effort, if only they would. It stays broken, and Kyoko knocks more often.

They have a routine that involves going out and fighting wraiths wherever they are concentrated. They listen to police radios and watch the news. They tell each other about places where they are likely to be when they sense it. Sometimes, Kyubey pops in and requests their presence with its constantly impassible expression and urgent tone resounding in their heads in unison. Fighting is rarely easy, and the wraiths are often next to innumerable. They can't fight them all, but the ones they do, they can beat. Somewhere else, Homura knows, other girls she's never seen, never met, never wholly imagined, are fighting, too. Sometimes, at the end of a fight, one of their soul gems is tinted with murky, swirling black and they're bleeding and broken in ways that would incapacitate a human for months on end. And yet nothing compounds, nothing ends, nothing comes to a head. There is no bracing for an impact. It's been months, and no one dies. Soon Homura realizes that the way she's been living for years (with the appearance of weeks) no longer makes sense.

The time spent together and near each other not in battle stops seeming as much like a chore. It lessens in severity, going from keeping up appearances to something like an easy habit. Falling asleep on Mami's sofa takes a little less time, and she isn't left wandering on her own until dawn.

When Kyoko stays for the night, the routine becomes a little different. More noisy.

Mami masks a yawn in the crook of her elbow against the loose sleeve of color-coordinated pajamas. She passes it off as a stretch, fingers extending to their full length up toward the ceiling.

"Look like you're about to cast a spell," Kyoko remarks, her own head lolled down against her arm that drapes in a cleared path atop the table. She adjusts her cheekbone against the inside of her elbow.

"Nothing that exciting, I'm afraid," Mami replies, gentle chuckle following. She reaches up, swiping delicately beneath her eye with a single fingertips' touch.

"You should go to bed," Kyoko announces.

Mami looks at a ticking clock on the wall.

Homura knows it is there, would recognize the sound anywhere, but pointedly doesn't let her gaze shift toward it.

"It isn't that late," Mami insists.

Kyoko jerks her head toward the window in counterargument.

"It's nighttime, and there's no wraiths we're fightin'. Go to sleep."

"You're very bossy," Mami says with a small shake of her head, a bounce of her curls.

Kyoko shrugs, stretches, and yawns.

"You're welcome to come to bed, as always," Mami says, taking her turn in the conversation even though Kyoko doesn't always politely keep passing the ball. Apparently, the answer piques the latter's interest enough to raise her eyebrows and her attention.

Homura sees a sharp smirk spread across her face. Kyoko's fingers lace together and lift skyward, palms up. Her toes point, too.

"That an invitation?" she asks slyly, ankles crossing just as she tries to meet Mami's eyes.

Mami rises to her feet abruptly, picking up a glossy magazine from her side of the table. It's pastel pinks and yellows and blues, bubble letters and girls with pretty, long hair. She rolls it in her hand into a loose half-circle, bopping Kyoko's forehead with it as she toes past her, stepping across her lap. She rolls her eyes and keeps moving until she's well past the sofa and table.

Kyoko first responds with a soft little _'oof.' _Then she's grinning, her face faintly flushed, but she mostly looks like a cat who got away with the family goldfish. She's smug, self-satisfied, and completely at ease with herself.

"I just thought that since Homu—Miss Akemi seems to like the sofa that you both might like to be comfortable," Mami explains, smoothing out her magazine in her hands.

"You can call me Homura," Homura says, feeling her mouth move without much thought driving it. She's said it, and she'll abide by it. She thinks they've had this conversation before, but since nothing is depending on it anymore, it's hard to keep track.

"I'll see you in the morning," Mami says with a little nod. "Homura," she adds, testing it again. Then she quietly goes about her nightly rituals without another word.

Water runs in the washroom, and Kyoko visibly fidgets her thumbs against her abdomen. She glances up at the sofa, then to Homura's knees for some reason.

"You can sleep on the couch," Homura says softly, bending her knees just a little tighter beneath the red gaze. "I don't mind." She doesn't. It's only a habit, and habits can be altered on a whim.

"Nah, that's not fair," Kyoko says, and she's taking off her boots – which she only does when it suits her, ever. She thumbs off her socks too and wipes her feet in a quick little shuffle against the carpet.

Homura's toes curl in their nylon. She's suddenly aware of them being a little cold.

"It doesn't matter," she insists with a slight grit in her teeth.

"Look, I said it's not fair, and I mean it's not fair. You do what you want. I'm used to it. Worse than this, sometimes," Kyoko says with equal conviction. She glances at the sofa and locks onto the lumpy fold of the thick, white blanket. "You wanna split the difference, could give me the blanket and use the couch yourself. I'm sure Mami's got somethin' else you could use for a blanket, even," she bargains after a moment's silence. Then she's looking down, studying the floor and her nails with equal interest. She looks a little unsure or even shy.

Homura rises to her feet, picks up the blanket by its bunched folds in her left hand, and passes it to Kyoko. In her right hand, she scoops up her emptied teacup and the little plate that goes beneath it. She lowers the white fluff down into Kyoko's lap. She goes through perfectly normal motions like carrying her dishes to the sink, rinsing them clean.

"You don't have to," Kyoko says, voice still fairly small to be coming from her. "It's... okay. I've got sleeves. I'll manage," she explains.

Homura can hear her calculating her level of discomfort with being cold in her head, weighing it against whichever completely changeable factors Kyoko has decided matter in this particular instance. Homura can never quite get a handle on which, if any, always find their way into consideration.

"You mistake my indifference for offense," she explains casually, in case it will put her mind at ease. Unlike Kyoko, Homura knows exactly why she does most things. Only those things which don't merit full consideration confuse her.

Proving her point about this difference between them with a timely demonstration, Kyoko alarms her a little when the next thing she hears from her mouth is filled with considerable ire.

"_Maybe_ your indifference offends me," she suggests, spitting around her words.

Homura is watching as the faint, dark dregs from tea leaves drain away down into the sink. She can almost hear Kyoko's fingers bunching up murderously in the soft, gentle fibers of the blanket she'd been given. Homura takes a deep breath.

She takes a dry towel and wipes the water droplets from the exterior of the cup and saucer. Each movement is deliberate, pointed, and firm. She doesn't turn around. Part of her wants to turn around and lock eyes with Kyoko Sakura, to remind her. _'You do it, too. You've always done it. _ _ **Every time ** _ _ you're indifferent, too.' _She doesn't point it out.

Kyoko perhaps takes some cue from the silence because in a moment a pull-chain rattles and a knob clicks once, then twice, and they are left in filtered-streetlight darkness. Homura puts away the dishes and makes her way back over to the sofa. Kyoko stretches her body out in what might be said to be her habitual spot on the floor. Homura takes a tight, nearly mechanical seat on the sofa.

She leans forward against her knees and watches out of the corner of her eye as Kyoko negotiates with the considerable width of the fully unfurled blanket. She shifts her gaze to the low table and only catches her reflection in it. She tucks her hair behind her without a specific motivation. Glancing back over her shoulder, she considers the length of the couch. She stands, then kneels down to the floor.

She lies in the opposite direction from Kyoko, parallel and apart. She doesn't quite touch the edge of the blanket except with part of the back of her arm.

Homura stares at the ceiling and is nearly stock-still.

She hears Kyoko audibly sniffing.

"You know, I would complain 'bout having feet in my face, but I think you probably got it rougher," comes the follow-up comment.

She doesn't have a reply.

"It's... weird, kinda. You don't smell like anything," Kyoko adds, undeterred by silence when she wants to say something.

"What... what should I smell like?" Homura asks, playing along to break the silence.

"I don't know. Sweat? Perfume? Somethin'."

They lapse into silence that doesn't leave until morning. Homura is dimly aware of fading in and out of sleep, but all the while she feels that she and Kyoko are inching and sliding along a clock-face in smooth, clockwise motion. When they're open, her eyes remain fixed on the same point on the ceiling which adds to the sensation of spinning around the air flowing in and out of her lungs. Sometimes, she hears Kyoko's rhythmic breathing that nearly fools her into thinking she's sound asleep. They're both startled awake, sometimes at the same time and other times by the tiniest transference of motion, a flinch in the other's hand. All the while, Homura can't help but feel like a long-exposure photograph, focused right on the North Star.

The following day is a weary blur. Homura's eyes feel tired and heavy from beneath. Every time she feels the impulse to rub them, she tries to negotiate glasses that are no longer there. She could fix them with magic, even the little broken capillaries that create darkish evidence of sleeplessness, but every time she catches a glimpse of Kyoko she decides not to.

Kyoko goes through the motions of a normal day, but it seems that everything she does takes a gargantuan effort. Homura is fully aware that some of it is an innate flare for the dramatic that she possesses, but it is an easy filling of the space of Mami's apartment all morning and afternoon. Kyoko touches things like she owns them and is as opposite as she can be in the way she occupies the room.

Homura alights on the sofa or kneels on the floor with a delicate, carefully balanced silence. She is like a ghost, like a dream, like a cog in a machine. She is hard to detect by design, by default, in fact.

Kyoko is impossible to avoid. She's loud, and she hauls a box filled with something she doesn't bother to explain and sets it down atop the table with a deliberate, determined huff. It can't be that heavy for her. The weapon she carries into battle must be the heaviest of them all in terms of felt force since Mami's _Tiro Finale _is playing games with physics for show. And yet Kyoko negotiates the box like she's as weak and unsteady as anything about her sturdy, muscular frame could ever be. She tears into the box with her fingernails bared and blows at a strand of hair that sticks to her lip. She's loud, forceful, inevitable.

"What is that?" Homura asks, raising her eyebrows in unison with her voice.

"Stuff," Kyoko replies. Her eyes look every bit as tired as Homura knows hers must. She seems to be having a little trouble getting her breath as deeply as she'd like even though she is the picture of well-fed health.

"I can see that," Homura says, a little sharply. She suddenly remembers their words from last night, the way they'd turned pointed. She wonders if _that_ is inevitable, too.

"Take it easy there," Kyoko advises. She glances up from rifling through her box. "Don't get excited or anything."

Homura sighs and looks away, rubbing at her stocking at the ankle.

"It's food and some stuff. I figure since Mami's basically keeping us up lately, I oughta..." Kyoko lapses back into silence in a way that indicates she's finished. Packaging audibly crinkles against her fingertips.

"Did you pay for it?" Homura asks, a little wryly. It's difficult to detect the difference in wry and biting, even to her own ears, but she's trying. She glances back up to monitor the results of her efforts.

The expression she catches on Kyoko's face isn't one she expects. It's a little blank. Her mouth hangs open, her eyes go a little unfocused just for a second, and she looks dizzy. There is recognition and confusion written there in equal measure, and Homura has seen looks like it enough times to have some engrained little instinct cloying inside her, telling her to run. She doesn't move. There's nowhere to go. She knows that Kyoko is hearing echoes of something else, something past, something that no longer exists. She's seen that expression written on all their faces, dozens of times, but she doesn't know what is behind this one. She doesn't know what triggered it, and it makes her more uncomfortable than she can remember being. She doesn't know what Kyoko remembers, what she senses, where she's been before. She doesn't know because she'd stopped paying attention.

Because she doesn't know, she can't say something to clear that strange, briefly deadened look from view. She doesn't leave, and so she can only wait.

"Most of it," Kyoko says. Homura doesn't quite know how long she's been waiting for an answer. Kyoko is emptying the box with purpose now. A few tosses later, she meets Homura's eyes. "Got a problem with a girl borrowing what she needs?"

"I have no problem with whatever creative accounting you see fit to do," Homura replies smoothly. She might have smiled, lately, but she's holding back some of her breath.

A sharp, nearly offensive burst of laughter hits the air between them. Then, reflex catches an apple in Homura's hand. She looks down at it, trying to understand.

"I gotcha, co-criminal. I get it. You like numbers," Kyoko says. Homura doesn't dare mention that once upon a time, she'd been terrible at math. She brushes her thumb over the gifted apple. "Just don't tell Mami," Kyoko adds. "Might explode."

Homura closes her eyes, thumbnail puncturing apple flesh. She remembers the resounding pop and the silence that followed for just a second when Mami shot Kyoko and her body was lying dead on the ground. She remembers Madoka's horrified wail. She remembers background noise, collateral damage.

That night, they lie on the floor a little earlier. This time, their positioning isn't a matter of debate or confusion. Homura's head is nearer the door, and Kyoko's is nearer Mami's bedroom. They are a little closer together this time, and both look up at the ceiling. They share a large, white, fluffy blanket. It's a little less excessive when Mami's air conditioning begins to work in earnest.

They're tired and they sleep.

Homura dreams now, as she often does, of Madoka. Madoka is real, and her mind loves to remind her of that fact. She is real, and she is just out of reach. She is real, and she'd once been as solid and resounding and warm and fragile as a punchy, faltering heartbeat. Delicate, gentle hands touch her arms just above the elbows. She's never felt strong before, but she knows she has to be to keep the rose-colored air all around her lit up and alive. It doesn't matter what it takes. Madoka is alive and as long as she can reach out and touch her, Homura knows she'll be okay. She'll keep fighting, she'll keep trying. Madoka is alive, and the world is so beautiful it aches. Her bow is a pink wisp of deadly gorgeous light, and Homura thinks she might know how to use it. A punchy heartbeat. Madoka is alive and Homura takes a deep breath, in through her nose, to steady herself.

Homura opens her eyes and it's dark. Madoka exists and she feels the faint, static buzz of household electricity. Her heart feels sick enough that the sensation is making its way to her stomach. Her fingertips seek out the left side of her chest. She decides it's only practical to touch the worst of it away when in another life she might have told parents that were in the next room that she felt sick.

"You awake?" Kyoko's voice jabs into the quiet, sheltered night. Homura's heart races and complains. Magic reaches it and it forgets for a while that nature and biology would demand that it keep its course set on dying. Homura draws a deep, controlled breath.

"Mm-hmm," she manages to hum a reply. It's weak, shaky, a little high in pitch.

"It's really quiet here," Kyoko says. It's a casual, random complaint. Homura doesn't know what she'd say to it even if she could speak, but the work she's doing for the moment only allows for one split of concentration. "I just can't help thinkin' it used to be a lot... louder. Warmer, too. I don't really... know what I'm talkin' about. Doesn't make sense, 'cause when I was here before, was just me and Mami. Yeah, and then you were here, and there was that... other girl. What was her name?"

_Sayaka Miki_. Kyoko knows damn well what her name was. Homura knows this fact and sets her teeth. It's a stupid little game to play, but they both do. She hasn't spoken Madoka's name since she'd spoken with her brother and mother. Homura lets her fingers curl away from her chest and fall back down against the floor. Her knuckles touch carpet out beside her cheek and past the dark corona of her hair.

"Sayaka," Homura says aloud in a burst of what her mind can only tell her is compassion. If it would change anything, if it would help, she would teach the world Madoka's name. But it won't, it can't, and so it belongs to her.

"Yeah, Sayaka," Kyoko says. The relief in her voice is almost tangible. Homura wonders what kinds of things got lost in the cracks when the universe convulsed and she was the only thing with conscious existence that could record that a shift had occurred. The assurance that Sayaka Miki had been real? Doubtful, but it sounds as though she's assuaged any lingering doubts Kyoko had. "Nutty. Wasn't she? Thought she was gonna save the world."

Homura can't respond in kind when Kyoko laughs, just for a bitter, empty second. Then, she hears the drawing of a breath and a settling yawn. She expects that to be the end of it when she feels the blanket slowly drag away from her legs and shift across the rest of her frame. She doesn't mean to but she shivers. In a moment, the cause becomes clear when Kyoko plants herself against her elbows, having performed a turn of 180 degrees. Then she's twisting and contorting to put the blanket where it was.

"You and me – we know better, don't we?" Kyoko asks. She drags a weary, loosely gesturing hand across her eyes, rubbing at them one at a time. Homura tries to meet her gaze in response but finds that it's apparently unnecessary and unacknowledged. "No saving the world, making it this perfect place where everybody gets what they want," she narrates, tracing some nonsense pattern – a character, a word, a name – on the carpet with a dropped fingertip. She glances between it and Homura's locked focus, curious and considering. She still looks tired. "But it's... nice to pretend, sometimes."

Kyoko tucks her cheek into the crook of her elbow and closes her eyes.

Homura turns her head enough to keep a clear view of her face. There is no clear trace of anger or fretting etched across Kyoko's brow. There is no sign of calculating against impossible odds with a brain not inclined toward math. Her eyes seem still behind their lids. For a moment, Homura considers the notion that whatever anger Sayaka Miki left behind in Kyoko Sakura's soul by leaving won't turn it dark, won't turn it sour. She considers the idea that somehow, in being free, Sayaka has let go that chain that keeps yanking Kyoko Sakura headlong into her death.

It's a novel idea.

Whether it's true or whether it's a pretty lie, Kyoko seems to be falling asleep. And she is right.

It is nice to pretend.

Homura squirms a little and she turns toward Kyoko. She lies on her side and supports her weight on her elbow. Loose hair spills across her arm. On her chest, beneath her shirt, she feels the damp, faint stickiness of sweat – probably not enough to create a telling scent, but perhaps. She breathes in deeply and her brow ticks down just a little tighter when she notices nothing. She settles slowly. Her arm crooks to mirror Kyoko but she keeps her eyes on her.

Kyoko seems dead-to-the-world again but not quite dead. Her hair is tangled and a strand of it snakes and sticks to the corner of her mouth. Her hood falls in a bunch about her neck. She breathes in and out, deep and steady. She squirms and starts to breathe through her mouth. Her mouth smells faintly of toothpaste.

* * *

_Thank you so much for reading! This is my first completed chapter fic in recent memory, so I'm so pleased you decided to read it. If you make it this far, leaving a comment would be so appreciated!  
_


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